One Battle After Another (2025) Warner Bros./Action-Thriller RT: 162 minutes Rated R (pervasive language, violence, sexual content, drug use) Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson Music: Jonny Greenwood Cinematography: Michael Bauman Release date: September 26, 2025 (US) Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti, Alana Haim, Wood Harris, Shayna McHayle, Paul Grimstad, Dijon Duenas, Tony Goldwyn, Starletta DuPois, D.W. Moffett, Kevin Tighe, Jim Downey, John Hoogenakker, Eric Schweig, Brooklyn Trueheart, Dan Charlton, April Grace, Jena Malone (voice).
Rating: ****
One Battle After Another is another winner for Paul Thomas Anderson, the guy behind two of the best films of the 90s, Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999). After a string of losers- The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014) and Phantom Thread (2017)- he bounced back mightily with the oddball rom-com Licorice Pizza (2021).
PTA continues his winning streak with the propulsive One Battle After Another, his most ambitious piece since Magnolia. It is, in a word, outstanding. It’s very much a movie for our time with the themes it covers (e.g. racial erasure, anti-immigrant fervor, white supremacy) yet it never feels angry or pissed off. It doesn’t even take sides, not really. That’s not what PTA is going for here. Instead of weighing things down with a lot of unnecessary self-importance, he keeps thing relatively playful by giving us a protagonist reminiscent of The Dude from The Big Lebowski.
Leonardo DiCaprio (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) plays Bob Ferguson, a member of a far-left revolutionary group called The French 75. In the film’s opening sequence, they raid an immigrant detention center on the US-Mexico border. They liberate the detainees and lock up all the soldiers. Bob’s partner Perfidia Beverly Hills (Taylor, A Thousand and One) takes things further by forcing the commanding officer Steven Lockjaw (Penn, Milk) to sexually gratify himself at gunpoint. He becomes obsessed with her. They have a sexual tryst that results in her getting pregnant.
Sixteen years later, the group is largely gone. They’re either dead or on the run. Bob falls into the latter category. He lives off the grid in a sanctuary city with the now-teenage Willa (Infiniti, Presumed Innocent) who he considers his daughter. She’s opinionated and strong-willed just like her mama who disappeared shortly after being forced to rat out her comrades by Lockjaw. Now a captain, he’s been invited to join a secret cabal of wealthy and powerful white supremacists. But first, he has to get rid of all evidence of his relations with a black woman. That means doing away with Willa.
Lockjaw manages to find her and sets in motion a violent plan to capture her. Luckily, she’s rescued by one of her mother’s old friends, Deandra (Hall, Support the Girls). Bob, who receives a warning to get out of Dodge, wants to reunite with Willa. The problem is he can’t remember the password when he calls the French 75 hotline for help. All those years of drinking and smoking weed have taken their toll. He gets into jam after jam as tries to find his daughter. She has her troubles as well.
As the end credits rolled, I was talking to my movie buddy Chris about PTA. I explained to him that he likes to paint his stories on a large canvas. That’s definitely true with One Battle After Another which is actually being shown in IMAX in some theaters. It’s a big story with a lot of moving parts yet PTA never loses control of it even in its wilder moments. The narrative isn’t one those that go in a straight line from point A to the final destination. It takes a few detours, but it never gets lost. PTA knows exactly where he’s going and how he wants to get there. Some will invariably say it’s too long and rambling; I say that’s part of the movie’s appeal. It has a shambling, shaggy dog quality that makes it stand out among the titles turned out by the Hollywood factory. It never feels long or belabored despite running close to 2 and ¾ hours.
Is it too early to make Oscar predictions? That’s a rhetorical question, of course. I would like see both DiCaprio and Penn nominated for their amazing performances. DiCaprio brings a shaggy, goofball quality to his character, a paranoid stoner who can’t seem to win for losing. Where some men will stop at nothing to save their loved one, he keeps running into roadblocks in his quest. He finds a sidekick in Sergio (Toro, Traffic), his daughter’s martial arts instructor and a staunch advocate for the local immigrant community. He brings comic relief to the proceedings.
Penn is the one I’m really rooting for. He plays a character who’s equal parts vile and ridiculous. He says and does awful things, but he looks stupid doing them. He walks around all stiff and serious, flexing his muscles and growling his lines, but anybody can see he’s an idiot and a dangerous one to boot. He’s a guy thirsty for power and he doesn’t mind erasing history to get it. It’s the actor’s best performance in a long time. It could very well nab him his third Academy Award.
All of the performances in One Battle After Another are great, but I’d like to give a special shout-out to Infiniti. This is her first movie role. She crushes it as Willa, an intelligent and resourceful teen who refuses to give in to fear even with a creep like Lockjaw getting right in her face.
Based loosely on the 1990 novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, who also wrote Inherent Vice, One Battle After Another is absolutely brilliant. PTA, who also wrote the screenplay, successfully updates the book which was set in Reagan-era California. He’s made it both timely and relevant not to mention entertaining. I’ll grant that it’s a lot to take in. I’m seriously considering a second viewing so I can absorb more of it. It’s the best film I’ve seen all year.
